I think that this has been reported before the site got wiped, but on the date submitted, it comes up as Wed, 12/31/1969 - 20:00. And that FREAKS ME OUT REALLY BAD for some reason. It is like eerie... Because 12/31/69 WAS A WEDNESDAY!!!!! AAUGH!!!! Freaky! Anyway, just wanted to give a shoutout. And when I previewed this post it said the same thing... 12/31/1969

Well, when I look at your post, it shows the correct date and time stamp. My preview shows the right date and time, too.

I wonder... what's your time zone setting?

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NaNo 2006(win): "Children of the Stars"
NaNo 2007(win): "Darkness Falls"

Hmm. Timestamping is showing correctly on mine as well, both under previews and regular posts. What browser/version/OS are you using?

Heather
Forums Moderator

Internet Explorer, Google, Windows Vista. It could be only in topics, but i remember a poster commenting about it in the NaNo forums in a comment...

oh, and I am in the Eastern time zone

Is your time zone set correctly on your profile here? I know there was a problem with the dates some time ago, but I thought that had been fixed, like during the run up to NaNo 2007.

Are the dates and times showing incorrectly right now for you? This one that I am putting in should show 14:36 or so (eastern time)... what do you see?

I, too, am using IE (7) and Vista... and am in the eastern time zone.

The first post that I made this year showed the date as 12/31/1969 while I was writing the message, but when I reviewed it afterwards, it displayed the correct date and time.

I haven't paid attention on other messages, so I haven't seen it again, but I haven't noticed whether it used the correct date.

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Inez
ML for Vancouver BC, Canada
obfuscated email: vancouver_bc @AT@ scriptfrenzy DOT.dot org

That's how preview works - since you haven't posted it yet, no date has been saved to the comment.

I'll make a note of it - it's not at all impossible to fix.

-> firebus
-> Web Programmer
-> www.nanowrimo.org
-> www.scriptfrenzy.org

but does anyone know why the heck it would show the date as 1969? Thats sooooooo long ago!

OK, so I just recreated this. It only seems to happen on an initial post, not on a reply.

When a date is not set, the server will typically choose the oldest date it is programmed for, usually set by the operating system. That's where this date would come from.

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NaNo 2006(win): "Children of the Stars"
NaNo 2007(win): "Darkness Falls"

Hi,

(Gets into geek mode)

On Unix-based systems, the date isn't held like you might think, or even as 2008-02-29 10:42:27, it is held as the number of milliseconds since 1 Jan 1970 because it takes up less space that way, and space was very important (and expensive) back then. A four-function calculator cost the average week's wage. In kit form.

So one millisecond after midnight that day is 1. One second after midnight is 1000. One minute is 60000 and so on. Right now it's 1206809340000.

But the programmers here need to indicate that the date has not been set. They can only use numbers, so they use -1. But -1 is also 1 millisecond before 1970 starts, so if they leave it as it is, you get 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59.999, and you see just the date part.

(Takes off glasses, stops talking in whiney voice)

Ian